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Secrets to Success
Deborah Cole Micek
and John-Paul Micek
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3 more laws of new-media marketing
Second of a four-part series
LAST week we discussed the first two of the Ten Commandments of New-Media Marketing Success.
>> No. 1: Thou shalt be a market thinker, not a product pusher.
>> No. 2: Thou shalt participate and profit without becoming an evangelist.
LET'S get right into the next guiding principles or laws for successfully marketing with "new media."
>> No. 3: Thou shalt keep thy marketing an ongoing conversation.
Once a conversation takes place, a relationship is formed. You nurture that relationship and you build rapport. That rapport leads to trust, and eventually to influence and persuasion.
A conversation can occur one-on-one -- or, as we're talking about here, one-on-one times 10,000 or one-on-one times 100,000.
Seth Godin forecast this leveraged type of networking in 1999, and most companies still haven't gotten it. Marketing is permission; it's not interruption.
Interruption marketing (the way old-school advertisers and marketers are still trying to do it) doesn't work anymore. Marketing is permission, and permission is only gained after engaging and listening.
"The Cluetrain Manifesto" is a great book for exploring the concept of the marketplace being a conversation. It focuses primarily on large corporations and the corporate world, trying to get them to understand in their own language how they need to change and adapt to this new marketplace.
>> No. 4: Thou shalt understand your target audience and honor their wants, needs and desires.
This is just good solid Marketing 101. But it's surprising how many business owners don't have a clear and specific description of who their market is.
Your target audience is dying to tell you what they want, but if you don't know exactly who they are, you can't use new media to make life easy.
>> No. 5: Thou shalt listen, learn, observe, and adapt.
This is easier than ever before because the new-media marketplace is so connected, dialogue is so active and search engines are so well adjusted to the new live nature of the Web.
There are two types of listening and observing: active and passive.
Active listening is like being at a party: You're interacting, you're engaged and you're in there.
Passive listening is like being behind the glass of a focus group: You're observing the market or your target audience from a distance.
You want to practice both types of listening, as they're equally important.
Next week we'll talk about how you must participate, comment and converse in context, and why all content must be linkable.
John-Paul Micek is the lead business coach at RPM Success Group Inc. Reach him at
JPM@RPMsuccess.com or toll-free at (888) 334-8151.
Deborah Cole Micek, chief executive officer of RPM Success Group, is a business success coach and life strategist. Reach her at
DCM@RPMsuccess.com or toll-free at (888) 334-8151.